Dice Spray doesn’t do anything special but it does it well

 I originally came across Dice Spray as part of the 12th Roll and Write Design Contest in 2022. Since then, it’s gotten its own BGG entry and some revised rules so I figure it’s okay to write about it as its own thing.

Dice Spray is a Roll and Write where you’re filling in a six-by-six grid. In multiplayer, you roll dice equal to the number of players plus one. Draft die and everyone shares the last die. In solitaire or a whole bunch of people, two dice get rolled. 

You pick one die to be the column or row. The other die will be the shape, which is the pip formation. So a four is four squares in the sale of a square and a five is five squares in the shape of an X.

You can get three rerolls but each one costs you a point. All six pips are scattered on the spaces (there are six different patterned boards and blank ones to make your own) and they have to be covered by that number’s shape. The revised rules include expansion where players get special powers.

Ten turns. Each filled square is a point. Most points wins.

Dice Spray has seen some regular play from me since 2022 and it’s really for one reason. I keep a 4.7x7.3 clipboard around so I can play Roll and Writes on the couch, using a dice roller on the phone. Each individual Dice Spray sheet is small enough to easily fit enough on that. So it’s quick and convenient to play solitaire that way.

Because, really, Dice Spray is an incredibly generic Roll and Writes. Filling in a grid with shapes. I honestly wonder if I’ve seen over a hundred of them at this point. Having restricted spaces is the only interesting element of Dice Spray. And I think that some of the other games that live on that clipboard are meaningfully better (Criss Cross, 13 Sheep or Palatial)

With that said, between the random special powers of the expansion and the dice drafting, I suspect Dice Spray is better as a multiplayer game. 

Honestly, two of Dice Spray’s strongest selling points is that the PDFs are free to download and easy to make. The PnP Outlaw from 2014 is another example of those virtues that I have referenced in the past. And I think that Dice Spray is the better game.

On the one hand, Dice Spray does absolutely nothing special or new. On the other hand, it is intuitive and balanced. If the mission statement was a simple game that anyone can play, it does just that. 

It’s a good option for the budget gamer.